Slashdot Mirror

And before Spore there was EVO EVO, which was also about intelligent design but was much more accurate as far as the tradeoffs of the features the player chose to evolve.

It had the added bonus of Gaia being a hot naked chick.

To add to my point, the Nintendo DSi announcement is a perfect example. Take a gander at the Slashdot story:

http://games.slashdot.org/games/08/10/02/2116202.shtml

"Nintendo finally came out with a solution to the Wii's lack of storage capacity -- a 2GB SD card from which users can execute games"

Sounds pretty cool, eh? Expect that it's wrong. Nintendo announced a solution to DOWNLOAD games to the SD Card. At no point did they confirm an executable solution. (In fact, they seemed intent on steering away from such an announcement.)

But Slashdot's reporting was not the worst. The worst was GameSpot, a site that SHOULD by all rights be authoritative. Yet here they are putting words into Reggie's mouth:

9:23] "Iwata is addressing the problem of Wii storage," he says. "Soon you will be able to download and store virtual console and WiiWare titles directly on your SD card, and play them off your SD card. This will make the Wii download experience much easier."

I emailed a more reputable editor who was at the event and confirmed for a fact that those words were never spoken. Yet many, many people quoted GameSpot's poor journalism as proof positive that Nintendo announced a solution to execute games off of SD Cards.

What is a site like Wikipedia supposed to do?

Thankfully, this is a case where a mountain of solid reporting existed to counteract the poor reporting. So Wikipedia reports the correct information. But what if this was more obscure information? How would Wikipedia know who to trust? How would they be able to check again bad reporting?

Answer: They can't. Reporters must be help accountable for the factual nature of their statements. (In the case of GameSpot, that means they should have issued a retraction.) If they cannot maintain a reasonable level of journalistic standards, the industry as a whole should start advertising them as an unreliable source.

They were however the first to do guitars and start the genre to begin with.

You sir are completely wrong. Konami had a stand up arcade version. They also had a guitar game with controllers for the PS. Yes the original PS. Last Century.

I want to know who this "Slashdot" pansy is, and where I can find him--and beat him. Too bad he didn't ask any questions about turning StarCraft 2 into episodic content. Sure, some people will happily pay 3 times for a storyline that continues... but fracturing each of the 3 species into 3 separate games? That's a cliff-hanging outrage if I've ever heard it. I should expect to play the Protoss campaigns sometime before 2020? Or not?
Fuck. How long has it taken to get even just the promise of a new StarCraft, and now we have to wait for their sluggish development cycle to churn out story-lines? Oh, no... they already have the story... what we're really waiting for are the cut-scenes. Read the article.
The cut-scenes from Blizzard are great, but Goddamn it, you guys! Scale the cut-scenes down, give me the whole story for one payment of $50, $60, or whatever the going rate for major titles is these days, and save the great cut-scene stuff for a big-screen movie. That way, I'm not stewing between releases about how I'm getting fucked over the coals by your new Activision Overlords, and you'll probably make more money in the long run from movie-ticket sales. Hell, I'd probably go see a StarCraft movie 5 times in the theater, and still by the Blu-ray--but the difference between that way of bleeding my wallet dry, and the way you're proposing is that I wouldn't feel like my loyalty is being exploited--but rewarded.

This $150 figure was pull out of one trolls ass, and just repeated as fact, way to go internet, spreading speculation in seconds, then turning it into "fact"

There is no price tag, and if you read the press releases and I quote " Pardo also said that the second two releases could be considered expansion packs, but that "we really want them to feel like stand-alone products."

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6199172.html?tag=latestheadlines;title;1

Yes it would have been perfect to get all 3 campaigns in one $60 box no doubt, but while we remember Starcraft fondly, it's single player was great for the time, but far from a compelling experience. build up a base then units, or use giving units. run them through the map, with possible scripted events inbetween. It was great for the time, but these days it's a little harder to impress, and the games strength lied in it's multiplayer anyways. And if I'm effectivley being told there are 2 more expansions already being produced I can only see that as a good thing, we all wanted more after brood wars.

What is going to be the real factor here, is the quality of the campaign in wings of liberty. If it's a engaging experience and at the end of those missions, blizzard has pulled off another great game, Your wallet will fly out of your pants. If it's a decent experience but you feel it's not really worth the money paid, and 2 more campaigns would make it feel like a full product they've perhaps have gone the EA route of cash grabbing and phoning it in.

The other question is how will multiplayer work, will these indeed be expansions and each one adds more units, and maps to multiplayer. Or go the standalone route, and patches for people that only own wings of liberty. Or something else, again we don't know anything, so lets not waste time and thought on the lack of information.

Heck some of this is just the competative nature of gaming now, Dawn of war 2 will be comming out soon probably before starcraft2, possibly another company of heroes expansion on top of that (I hope that rumor is true). Also perhaps purposley or conicidently World in conflict: soviet assault is without a publisher because of the activision/blizzard/vivendi merger. Though hopefully they will get picked up soon, and even that might be out before starcraft 2, if it does come out at all. Also due to that merger, the homeworlds license is up for grabs again, and relic has done well at THQ, so it could makes sense to buy that on the cheap, and get back to their original game. There's total war, civilization, heck even the lord of the rings EA RTS games were pretty fun.

Here's someting I'll leave with, Deus ex 2 did not ruin deus ex 1. It made me appreciate that deus ex 1 was made, and I was lucky enough to play it and know that deus ex 2 fell far from a tall tree. I hope starcraft 2 dosen't go that route, but it will not diminish my time with it, and my time with/against friends, and online adversaries.

For the global chat channels:
http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/108769045/p1
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/warhammeronline/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-45831838&pid=520538

It's important to explicitly call out the properties of DRM that make it bad. DRM is out there to prevent the player from willy-nilly installing on everyone's PC's, which can be bad as it prevents you from switching computers or backing up your own games. Steam actually facilitates transferrence, as you can download any purchased games on any computer you log into. You don't need a CD to play, you don't need a CD to install on another computer, you can play your games on all the computers you have available.

Steam only runs with your games, doesn't take up a lot of CPU time, and has been stable for several years now. The one outstanding question is "what happens if Valve shuts down," but they have promised to unlock everything in such a case.

I still hear lots of complaints on forums about Steam being slow and at times denies them access to the games they've purchased. There's even a complaint in this thread. So saying Steam is stable isn't really 100% accurate. Also, anything running in the background while I play my game is going to be using some resources. Thanks, but I need those resources to play my games. Also, since Steam constantly checks to see if your games type of DRM is very bad for people overseas who have unreliable access to the internet (e.g. people overseas, military, etc.).

If we shout that DRM in all forms is terrible, none of the companies will or can listen. If we work towards removing the problematic portions of the system, we might get a compromise setup that is better than we started with.

I'm much more comfortable with the approach StarDock uses which they've been very successful with. No DRM on the disc (other than a CD key), but when you want to install updates you have to eseentially check-in online. Also Impulse, their distribution system (similar to Steam) doesn't have any DRM built-in. The game can have DRM, but the distribution system doesn't.

This game is only a way to play old-skool Mega-man on the newer platforms and it isn't the first MM game to do it.

Nothing new to see here, move along.

On the other hand, there are so many damn characters that they could start a Mega Man MMORPG -- would it be called a MMMMORPG? :)

Gamespot did a story on this (with a different drive, as Intel's offering was not yet available) here.

Long story short: it offered minor improvements at best and in some cases degraded performance. I'm not sure what the reason is, but in the PS3, at least, solid state disks are not worth the expense.

Are you sure? Usually I find people complaining about the lack of Adventure games while ignoring the dozens of Adventure games that come out every single year: http://www.gamespot.com/reviews.html?platform=5&category=Adventure+Games&type=reviews&mode=top&sort=post_date&sortdir=asc#

Adventure gaming has become a small niche market of mostly low or average quality releases. Not exactly like it was back in the days of Sierra, Lucasarts and Infocom.

I think if you get past the nostalgia, you'll realize that the video games industry is healthier now than ever before, with a wider range of great products than ever before.

Considering that several genres have pretty much died out, I'm not sure that's the case. Casual gamers have also become much too prominent, and have dumbed down games and gaming culture.

A top-down shooter requires good reflexes, but it has nowhere near as many seizure-inducing flashing going on as todays FPS games.

Which ones have you played? Given, 1942 is pretty tame, but it's also running on the wimpiest hardware. Most games of that genre have hundreds of projectiles on screen at once, frequent full-screen flashes, all kinds of craziness. In comparison, FPS games generally only have full-screen effects when you're injured in some way.

Or maybe the games he liked are simply no longer being made. There are certainly a lot of genre and game concept that I haven't seen being used in a long long while. While other genres that I have goten already tired of long ago get new releases every month (FPS, ...).

Are you sure? Usually I find people complaining about the lack of Adventure games while ignoring the dozens of Adventure games that come out every single year: http://www.gamespot.com/reviews.html?platform=5&category=Adventure+Games&type=reviews&mode=top&sort=post_date&sortdir=asc#

Triple-check that your favorite genre of game isn't being made anymore, because I'd wager you're wrong on that count.

Is that nostalgia, maybe a little, but that still wouldn't explain why I even enjoy old games that I never had contact with back in the day.

Nostalgia doesn't need to be exact. Maybe you haven't played that "exact" 1993 game before, but you've played enough VGA 256 DOS-based games with Soundblaster16 sound and MIDI music that you still have the same familiar reaction.

I think if you get past the nostalgia, you'll realize that the video games industry is healthier now than ever before, with a wider range of great products than ever before.

TWICE as fun...

What happened was that most companies saw the Wii as an "also ran" once again. The XBox barely beat out the Gamecube lastgen (both getting their asses handed to them by the PS2). So, when Nintendo said "less power more immersive", the developers scratched their heads then "ooh"ed and "aah"ed over PS3 and 360 graphics. As with most of the market, they were thinking only of the core market (14-25 males) and what they would bring.

(It should be noted that the DS was only coming into its own right leading up to the Wii's launch, so the whole "it prints money" thing hadn't connected yet.)

Fast forward a year after release. 360's numbers are still looking alright, but Sony can't give away PS3 consoles (which were free with any HDTV purchase above a grand at many stores for a while). Wii, in the mean time, either has already surpassed the 360 in sales or is set to do so in a month or two's time, despite having a year's handicap. Suddenly, developers are going "oh shit" and want to jump on the money train. They see the success of games like Wii Sports (duh, as it's packaged with the Wii), Wii Play, and Rayman Raving Rabbids (which is quite fun) and think "We an pump out a bunch of minigame games". So we get isles of shovelware for Wii Year 2. In this time we get a bunch of good games as well, but it's starting to suffer the same way the PS2 did.

But we're coming up on Year 3 and it seems that a lot of companies are announcing original properties or new titles for the console. We have MadWorld, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of a New World, The Conduit, and Fatal Frame (4): Mask of the Lunar Eclipse. For the casuals, there are plenty of other enticing options, such as Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party, Wii Music (along with other Nintendo Wii titles), and Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party 2. At the same time, the Wii is becoming more than an afterthought. For instance, Rock Band 2 will not be crippled like the original Rock Band Wii was.

I think, though, that Year 3 will not be the year of casuals, as that's more of an over-arching thing, partly because casual gamers are far more likely to buy older titles they haven't played or only rented/borrowed before, whereas "core" gamers are much more likely to stick with new releases. Instead, a trend that I see developing for late Year 3/early Year 4 is ports, either straight or enhanced. We've had Resident Evil 4 and Okami, as well as other titles like House of the Dead (2 & 3). Capcom has announced Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop and Sega has Samba de Amigo. Only two titles, sure, but as Wii sales continue on their steady pace (and stores continue to sell out), more and more developers are going to reach into their catalog of PS2, XBox, and Dreamcast games and grab some of the more popular titles to bring to the Wii. Because the expectations lower, they won't need to spend much time ramping up graphics, and by this point many studios have gotten good with applying the Wii controls. Throw in a bit of extra content here and there, price it at $30 or $40, and you have an easy seller.

Nintendo did have a bad E3 (I mean, wow), but this allows 3rd parties to step up not just for casual gaming, but for the core market as well. Over time some of those casuals will come over to the dark side, spurring "core"

What happened was that most companies saw the Wii as an "also ran" once again. The XBox barely beat out the Gamecube lastgen (both getting their asses handed to them by the PS2). So, when Nintendo said "less power more immersive", the developers scratched their heads then "ooh"ed and "aah"ed over PS3 and 360 graphics. As with most of the market, they were thinking only of the core market (14-25 males) and what they would bring.

(It should be noted that the DS was only coming into its own right leading up to the Wii's launch, so the whole "it prints money" thing hadn't connected yet.)

Fast forward a year after release. 360's numbers are still looking alright, but Sony can't give away PS3 consoles (which were free with any HDTV purchase above a grand at many stores for a while). Wii, in the mean time, either has already surpassed the 360 in sales or is set to do so in a month or two's time, despite having a year's handicap. Suddenly, developers are going "oh shit" and want to jump on the money train. They see the success of games like Wii Sports (duh, as it's packaged with the Wii), Wii Play, and Rayman Raving Rabbids (which is quite fun) and think "We an pump out a bunch of minigame games". So we get isles of shovelware for Wii Year 2. In this time we get a bunch of good games as well, but it's starting to suffer the same way the PS2 did.

But we're coming up on Year 3 and it seems that a lot of companies are announcing original properties or new titles for the console. We have MadWorld, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of a New World, The Conduit, and Fatal Frame (4): Mask of the Lunar Eclipse. For the casuals, there are plenty of other enticing options, such as Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party, Wii Music (along with other Nintendo Wii titles), and Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party 2. At the same time, the Wii is becoming more than an afterthought. For instance, Rock Band 2 will not be crippled like the original Rock Band Wii was.

I think, though, that Year 3 will not be the year of casuals, as that's more of an over-arching thing, partly because casual gamers are far more likely to buy older titles they haven't played or only rented/borrowed before, whereas "core" gamers are much more likely to stick with new releases. Instead, a trend that I see developing for late Year 3/early Year 4 is ports, either straight or enhanced. We've had Resident Evil 4 and Okami, as well as other titles like House of the Dead (2 & 3). Capcom has announced Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop and Sega has Samba de Amigo. Only two titles, sure, but as Wii sales continue on their steady pace (and stores continue to sell out), more and more developers are going to reach into their catalog of PS2, XBox, and Dreamcast games and grab some of the more popular titles to bring to the Wii. Because the expectations lower, they won't need to spend much time ramping up graphics, and by this point many studios have gotten good with applying the Wii controls. Throw in a bit of extra content here and there, price it at $30 or $40, and you have an easy seller.

Nintendo did have a bad E3 (I mean, wow), but this allows 3rd parties to step up not just for casual gaming, but for the core market as well. Over time some of those casuals will come over to the dark side, spurring "core"

What happened was that most companies saw the Wii as an "also ran" once again. The XBox barely beat out the Gamecube lastgen (both getting their asses handed to them by the PS2). So, when Nintendo said "less power more immersive", the developers scratched their heads then "ooh"ed and "aah"ed over PS3 and 360 graphics. As with most of the market, they were thinking only of the core market (14-25 males) and what they would bring.

(It should be noted that the DS was only coming into its own right leading up to the Wii's launch, so the whole "it prints money" thing hadn't connected yet.)

Fast forward a year after release. 360's numbers are still looking alright, but Sony can't give away PS3 consoles (which were free with any HDTV purchase above a grand at many stores for a while). Wii, in the mean time, either has already surpassed the 360 in sales or is set to do so in a month or two's time, despite having a year's handicap. Suddenly, developers are going "oh shit" and want to jump on the money train. They see the success of games like Wii Sports (duh, as it's packaged with the Wii), Wii Play, and Rayman Raving Rabbids (which is quite fun) and think "We an pump out a bunch of minigame games". So we get isles of shovelware for Wii Year 2. In this time we get a bunch of good games as well, but it's starting to suffer the same way the PS2 did.

But we're coming up on Year 3 and it seems that a lot of companies are announcing original properties or new titles for the console. We have MadWorld, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of a New World, The Conduit, and Fatal Frame (4): Mask of the Lunar Eclipse. For the casuals, there are plenty of other enticing options, such as Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party, Wii Music (along with other Nintendo Wii titles), and Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party 2. At the same time, the Wii is becoming more than an afterthought. For instance, Rock Band 2 will not be crippled like the original Rock Band Wii was.

I think, though, that Year 3 will not be the year of casuals, as that's more of an over-arching thing, partly because casual gamers are far more likely to buy older titles they haven't played or only rented/borrowed before, whereas "core" gamers are much more likely to stick with new releases. Instead, a trend that I see developing for late Year 3/early Year 4 is ports, either straight or enhanced. We've had Resident Evil 4 and Okami, as well as other titles like House of the Dead (2 & 3). Capcom has announced Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop and Sega has Samba de Amigo. Only two titles, sure, but as Wii sales continue on their steady pace (and stores continue to sell out), more and more developers are going to reach into their catalog of PS2, XBox, and Dreamcast games and grab some of the more popular titles to bring to the Wii. Because the expectations lower, they won't need to spend much time ramping up graphics, and by this point many studios have gotten good with applying the Wii controls. Throw in a bit of extra content here and there, price it at $30 or $40, and you have an easy seller.

Nintendo did have a bad E3 (I mean, wow), but this allows 3rd parties to step up not just for casual gaming, but for the core market as well. Over time some of those casuals will come over to the dark side, spurring "core"

What happened was that most companies saw the Wii as an "also ran" once again. The XBox barely beat out the Gamecube lastgen (both getting their asses handed to them by the PS2). So, when Nintendo said "less power more immersive", the developers scratched their heads then "ooh"ed and "aah"ed over PS3 and 360 graphics. As with most of the market, they were thinking only of the core market (14-25 males) and what they would bring.

(It should be noted that the DS was only coming into its own right leading up to the Wii's launch, so the whole "it prints money" thing hadn't connected yet.)

Fast forward a year after release. 360's numbers are still looking alright, but Sony can't give away PS3 consoles (which were free with any HDTV purchase above a grand at many stores for a while). Wii, in the mean time, either has already surpassed the 360 in sales or is set to do so in a month or two's time, despite having a year's handicap. Suddenly, developers are going "oh shit" and want to jump on the money train. They see the success of games like Wii Sports (duh, as it's packaged with the Wii), Wii Play, and Rayman Raving Rabbids (which is quite fun) and think "We an pump out a bunch of minigame games". So we get isles of shovelware for Wii Year 2. In this time we get a bunch of good games as well, but it's starting to suffer the same way the PS2 did.

But we're coming up on Year 3 and it seems that a lot of companies are announcing original properties or new titles for the console. We have MadWorld, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of a New World, The Conduit, and Fatal Frame (4): Mask of the Lunar Eclipse. For the casuals, there are plenty of other enticing options, such as Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party, Wii Music (along with other Nintendo Wii titles), and Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party 2. At the same time, the Wii is becoming more than an afterthought. For instance, Rock Band 2 will not be crippled like the original Rock Band Wii was.

I think, though, that Year 3 will not be the year of casuals, as that's more of an over-arching thing, partly because casual gamers are far more likely to buy older titles they haven't played or only rented/borrowed before, whereas "core" gamers are much more likely to stick with new releases. Instead, a trend that I see developing for late Year 3/early Year 4 is ports, either straight or enhanced. We've had Resident Evil 4 and Okami, as well as other titles like House of the Dead (2 & 3). Capcom has announced Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop and Sega has Samba de Amigo. Only two titles, sure, but as Wii sales continue on their steady pace (and stores continue to sell out), more and more developers are going to reach into their catalog of PS2, XBox, and Dreamcast games and grab some of the more popular titles to bring to the Wii. Because the expectations lower, they won't need to spend much time ramping up graphics, and by this point many studios have gotten good with applying the Wii controls. Throw in a bit of extra content here and there, price it at $30 or $40, and you have an easy seller.

Nintendo did have a bad E3 (I mean, wow), but this allows 3rd parties to step up not just for casual gaming, but for the core market as well. Over time some of those casuals will come over to the dark side, spurring "core"

In case anyone needs maps... U2 Hints

--
How can you understand Life, if you don't even know what happens afterDeath??

Don't get your hopes up guys, this is being made by the same Russian developers that produced the positively awful Tarr Chronicles back in September of 2007, Akella and Quazar Studio. Furthermore if you watch the Dark Horizon trailer and look at the dialog text, you'll find the name "De'khete" in there, that was one of the enemy factions from Tarr Chronicles.

It looks like this is the sequel to Tarr Chronicles under a different name to hide the fact that it's related to that flop. I hate to judge developers before they even get their work out, but when their last title was an abomination and their next title is a sequel coming out a mere year later, I wouldn't put much faith in the game being anything more than a hunk of junk even more rushed than their last game. Go read the reviews for Tarr Chronicles, Dark Horizon is probably just going to be the same thing all over again.

The game begins with you trapped in a room, tied to a chair.
You could hit yourself and turn into the HULK! but gas would immediately fill the room and you would wake up as bruce banner again.
If you left the room you were crushed by gravity.
apparently i wasn't the only one thwarted by this piece of crap

I guess they make money on families who can't afford video game systems, or have some sort of moral problem with them (there are a lot of parents who think video games "rot their children's minds," turn them into serial killers, etc.).

Interestingly, more blood-letting occurred in our house over cwms and puls than WWF Wrestlemania or Repton. Perhaps I'm stating the obvious, but Scrabble is dangerous.

It's quite noticable on Page 2; see the cliffs in the last shot, Vista has shadows where XP has none. Not terribly exciting though, especially given the additional FPS impact; woo a few shadows ;)

Some things you probably have to see moving, though. e.g. Bioshock uses more dynamic water with DX10 (which as betterer vertex shaders or so?), and responds more to objects moving in it.

There is hardly a difference between Crysis under DX9 and DX10. DX10 "features" are a Microsoft scam to promote Vista, nothing more.

So yes, you can maximise the detail levels on XP.

I wonder if Cid Meier learned his lesson from the Super Nintendo version of Civilization I that flopped and failed so much his company almost went under?

I have a son and nephews who like Civ 4 on my son's PC, but wish it were easier for them to play. Civ Revolutions would be a good program to install on my son's PC so I don't have to keep giving them advice on how to play the game.

Looks like the real reason to go XBox 360 instead of PC or Mac, is to force people to buy a new gaming console for $299 and then the $59 Civ Revolutions DVD, instead of just buying the $59 Civ Revolutions DVD for the PC or Mac.

What I am upset over is that the Civ Revolutions commercial didn't state that it was only available for game consoles and not the PC or Mac. I had to take my son to the game store, only to find out that it didn't exist for his PC, and I have to buy him an XBox 360 because his Playstation 2 doesn't play it nor does his XP PC.

Just a gimmick to get more money from us, by shutting out the PC and Mac versions and forcing us to buy an XBox 360 to play those games.

Although some voted nay, remember most polictians are for a nanny state it seems, regardless of political party.

Hillary said that if the game's manufacturer did not change the game's ESRB rating from M (Mature 17+) to AO (Adults Only 18+), she would introduce federal legislation to regulate video games.gamespot

Because, you know, magically the day you turn 18, you become so much more mature than the day before.

It's probably because of the American-Oz war?

I think you're thinking of Dig Dug

Ripple water in a Diablo game? Gee, that showed up in Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance (a PS2 Diablo clone) back in 2002! In fact, it looks like a prettier version of a Snowblind Engine game, except for the fixed camera. Take a look at these videos: http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/rpg/baldursgatedarkalliance/media.html?mode=all/

Yes looking at places like this I had the impression that Sony supports this. If they only allow but do not support this then yes Sony is out of the loop.

Here you go!

Ah, I found the original.

This guy drivers (or used to) in the FIA GT 3 championship and plays driving sims. It is awesome to see his real life racing videos and videos from a racing simulation (rFactor in this case).

Personally, this fascinates me.

I'd like to point out that DirectX 10 is arbitrarily tied to Vista explicitly for backwards incompatibility & to force upgrades. , but so far the difference is nearly indistinguishable and not a uniform "win" for DX10. Not only that, but because DX10 only runs on Vista, it tends to render slower than DX9. As of yet I haven't seen a single DX10 feature worth upgrading for, nor have I seen a DX10-only game yet. Killer feature indeed.

Sources: http://webpages.charter.net/bliss/ http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/pcs/directx-9-vs-directx-10-worth-upgrading-to-vista-for-243099.php http://www.gamespot.com/features/6171326/index.html

They'll make some money. I don't have a clue as to how much but that shouldn't be the focus as far as the consumer is concerned. As long as there are plenty of people to play online and it's a fun game, that's all I will be caring about.

DoA4, well everything in the DoA series, has been quick to the bargain bin. It's got a sloppy control system but tends to be released early in the life of consoles, so each time a new one comes out it sells because it's usually the first to utilize the console's graphical abilities. The Soul Calibur series is the only one I found that seemed to be able to balance simple controls and slop with enough depth to expand into tactical, calculating game play without spending lots of time practicing (compared to Tekken 3, VF. or SF games).

As for Virtua Fighter and Street Fighter 2 HF, I never have trouble finding a large number of people to play online. The games (unlike DoA 4) are actually fun and not some little kid riding the wave of latency to get through defenses. As for the Street Fighter 2 HF players on Xbox Live Arcade, there is a mix of old people (like me) and a ton of younger people playing it.

I think everyone was surprised at the mass appeal the 2D fighter still has. Here's some linkage regarding SF2 HF's initial sales:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6155288.html

Additionally, I don't even have trouble finding people to play online to this day even playing Street Fighter Anniversary Edition (an old Xbox1 title people continue to play on their 360s due to the lack of a modern SF game to play, but will probably last beyond the new release dates due to them being different games, with different moves, and different characters).

Personally, I like all good fighters. So much, I raped a wireless 360 controller for parts and built a custom arcade controller using Sanwa parts with a Japanese SF button layout for the above games. It's nice to see such controls actually coming out with decent quality parts from companies like Hori, albeit, none of them are wireless and built by me!

It's obvious you don't know what you are talking about. Epic has put out numerous fantastic games.

ZZT is a legendary text adventure game which offered the ability to script just about anything you wanted for it.

Epic Pinball was one of the best video pinball games ever made. It had a dozen tables, realistic physics, fantastic music and good, smooth scrolling graphics.

Jazz Jackrabbit was a great platform game which I personally like more than any Mario game, though I will admit that Sonic the Hedgehog was the best of the three game series.

One Must Fall 2097 was a fun 1 vs 1 fighting game with good music (by C.C.Catch of the old demo group Renaissance) and smooth CGI character animations which were far superior to anything that the 16-bit consoles of the time could produce.

Unreal worked flawlessly when it came out. At least it did on my Voodoo 2 cards, which is what it was intended for. The software renderer was also top notch, being far better than anything else around. The AI for NPCs was unmatched during its time with enemies that actually displayed intelligence in combat. Unreal also came with probably the best editor even to this day. I still play it occasionally.

Unreal Tournament is probably the single best multiplayer first person shooter ever made. Great weapon variety, SUPERB map design (I am a map designer myself) and unmatched AI bots. Again, UT came with a map editor that allowed you to create maps and see exactly how it would look in realtime, something that its closest competitor (Quake 3 Arena) didn't have.

Unreal II was a very fun game which I found to be far better than many of the shooter out at the time. Some people unfairly criticised it when, in fact, it offered everything that a good shooter should have.

Gears of War is a good third person shooter which has won several awards. It's pretty straightforward, but it is also one of the best of the genre.

Unreal Tournament 3 is groundbreaking mostly for the technology behind it. It's not really my cup of tea, but I can respect it for what it contributed to the world of gaming.

And lets not forget about all of the indirect involvement Epic has had. Without the Unreal engines there would be no Deus Ex (probably the best game ever made), Splinter Cell, Thief : Deadly Shadows or Bioshock, amongst many others.

John Carmack has praised Unreal. There is a good story behind the Unreal engine here.

As for Valve, you've got to be kidding. They haven't made shit that was good. Half Life was crap, Half Life 2 was mediocre, Team Fortress wasn't even made by them and Portal was entertaining for about an hour.

Recording sessions for dialogue and in-game audio went on for ten hours a day, five days a week. The entire process took weeks to finish.

"I'd love to see a graphics processor that could be programmed to create graphics that look like classical hand-drawn animation."

Isn't this what shaders (and other like technology) are for? Most current hardware can do this I would imagine, it's a matter of art direction and developing the tools / models to make it look right.

Much of what you are speaking of is done in the animation industry in Japan (for anime), Animes like Ghost in the shell Stand alone use plugins to do so to do so.

Also see games like: Rogue Galaxy (PS2) which shaded 3D models like traditionally drawn anime characters. http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/rpg/roguegalaxy/index.html

Tech wasn't perfect but I was impressed.

Nintendo is so Green!

http://ui08.gamespot.com/1383/greenn64_4.jpg

The Death Knight is a Hero Class -- available to anyone with a character over level 55, starting at level 55. See also Gamespot's preview

• * They sell software that's full of bugs, and won't even be playable for several patches... or maybe they don't even admit that there are problems.
  
• * They sell software that won't actually run on any state-of-the-art machine without half of the highly-touted features turned off.
  
• * They sell software that requires some sort of crappy upgrade that you really don't want.
  
• * They are trying to strongarm you into moving from a model where you buy software once, to a model where you buy the same software over and over and over and over again.

I recall it specifically since I was working on Deer Hunter in '97, which was specifically targeted at those mid to low-end machines. For a good chuckle, look at the min specs required for that game. I think it's much more likely that the market will continue to grow in both direction. There will always be those who want the fastest and best at the upper end of the market, but it will likely also expand downward to fill additional niches.

plans for a "live action movie" in Blizzard's news - May 2006 Gamespot did an interview with Blizzard

or direct link to the interview

Well, Bethesda was worried that they wouldn't be able to fit Oblivion on one DVD, although they did manage to squeeze everything down in the end.

Rage, Id's next game, is going to ship on two DVDs, or one BluRay disc.

Google it my friend, It's not hard. Here's a quick search. Would you care to back up why being lazy is acceptable... ;) http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Wii+%2B+development+cost&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Read this article about how the Wii costs about half the price of the other toys to develop for, it's fun:
http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/features/cost-of-development-greatly-favors-wii-say-publishers/69714/

There's nothing marginal about 50%+ less for Wii dev cost.

And $2000 for a SDK is not an arm an a leg. Here's another link to save you the aggravation of searching:
http://www.warioworld.com/apply/wii.html

As noted by the other response to your post, the Wii shares many similarities to its predecessor, which make it easier and cheaper to develop for, especially for the studios that put their time in on the Cube. And just to clear something up, there's nothing last-gen about a Wii's performance or the tech it uses, which is 6 years more advanced.

A publisher doesn't need to sell nearly as many units on a Wii as it does on the PS3 or 360 in order to see a return on their investment. This this is do to the lower development cost and simpler hardware configuration. **Namco stated that it needs to sell 500,000 PS3 games to make a profit as an example. Compare this to 165,000, which is what I've read is needed for the Wii.
** http://www.gamespot.com/news/6162509.html

So just because a game sells more units on a 360 as an example, that doesn't mean it has made a profit for its publisher/developer. With the Wii's HUGE user base for its relatively short life on the market along with its "significantly" lower development cost, publishers/developers have a better chance of seeing a profit on a Wii game than the PS3 or 360.

OMG!! I'm using this 12 year old kid term, because you used HARDCORN -- now I must rant. First off, let me present you with a link that disproves your myth that kids that like to aim with their thumb and deem blood as mature, buy more games. The supposed hardcore gamer is a joke. I've been gaming since the age of pong. There's nothing hardcore about most console gamers, since they're used to games that have generally been dumbed down do to the limiting nature of a gamepad. Compared to the games I played in the eighties and ninteies, games now days are a walk in the park. Sure, they look way better, but they're way less sophisticated... I loved the complexity that is SYSTEM SHOCK, I hated the simpleton that is BioShock.

Anway, here's the link, read fact number "4."
http://www.theesa.com/facts/top_10_facts.php
The average age of the most frequent game buyer is 38 years old. In 2007, 92 percent of computer game buyers and 80 percent of console game buyers were over the age of 18.

Also notice that the average gamer is age 33, not the teenage kid publishers have been marketing to for the past 8 years, so guys hat are in their twenties now. ;) :p

Kids won't have access to a flash cart -- unless they have parents like my friends. Guys my age buy our games and on that note, buy your DS games you pirate! :p

<]=)

Nitpick: There was a PS1 release of Civ 2. I can confirm that it was indeed a disappointment.

These corporate wars? http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/cyberstorm2corporatewars/index.html I missed not getting to play the original Cyberstorm. Hexes were a much better play surface than squares. Maybe someone should make sure they're using Hexes for the second operation, might suck less...

"just as free viral social apps like Scrabilicious sell more Scrabble games for the licensors than kill off the free social app will. Don't kill off the goose that lays the golden eggs ..."

Golden eggs? Hasbro sells 1-2 million boards a year, and that's before the "golden egg" Scrabulous existed. They don't need Scabulous.

However these brothers are still making 25k/mo on something Hasbro had to pay good money to buy. And they already make a PC version of Scrabble. This is like someone making a online version of Starcraft and then bitching when Blizzard comes after them. What sense does that make?

if you want to use someone's property you have to do the right thing: ask them to use it and pay them if they demand it. You can't just steal it and say "but I'm doing some good with it!" Life doesn't work like that.

EA will move in for hostile takeover. This is unrelated to GTA4. EA wants to eliminate 2K Sports.

Dont forget the expansion packs

GTA House Party
GTA Nightlife
GTA Holiday Edition
GTA Pets

Not that it would deter old Jackie.

GTA and Crackdown creator runs down his contemporary-themed PC, 360 MMOG

removing "the grind" [is] a top priority